Injuries & salary cap won't dampen Wasps' celebrations

Dai Young may be in the midst of an injury crisis with a smaller squad at his disposal but Wasps’ 150^th anniversary celebrations will still go off with a bang.

With the likes of Danny Cipriani, Gabiriele Lovobalavu, Willie le Roux, Dan Robson, Guy Thompson, Tommy Taylor and Matt Symons all on the treatment table, the Wasps coach says it’s becoming more difficult to cope as he’s had to cut the size of his squad from 45 to 40 due to rising wages.

Not only have Wasps payed a hell of a lot of money to the likes of Kurtley Beale and co, they’ve also had to pay more than they would have liked in order to keep players who have come through the academy, such as Joe Launchbury and Elliot Daly.

All of a sudden their wages are up at around £300,000 per year or more when they would have been on less than half that a couple of years ago.

Wages are going up and players want to earn as much as they can. The salary cap rose to £7 million recently and players see that and do start asking for more money, so that is one of the tough jobs that a director of rugby has to deal with.

It’s a balancing act for the guys at the top like Dai Young and Mark McCall. To keep those players whose value has increased, you might have to lose one or two players along the way and cut your squad size.

Owen Farrell has probably doubled his wages from around £300,000 to over £600,000 or £700,000 and, whilst you can have two players that don’t count towards your £7 million salary cap, you can’t just find that extra money down the back of the sofa.

It is a jigsaw puzzle for directors of rugby in terms of making the pieces fit and ensuring that they have the best squad possible when they’re striving to win the league but you can compare that with someone like Steve Diamond at Sale, who isn’t spending anywhere near the amount of cash that some other clubs are.

The Premiership salary cap has been frozen at £7 million for the next three seasons and injuries are a fact of life, so it’s a problem that isn’t going to go away but not too many people will be getting the violins out for Wasps when they can name Ashley Johnson, Juan De Jongh and Marcus Watson on their bench.

Ultimately, players’ market value has gone up because of the increases in the salary cap and rising tv revenues and the players do deserve a piece of that. Dai Young understands that and knows he has to pick up as many points as possible while he is depleted before kicking on when the reinforcements arrive.

Other teams have been through similar spells and you’d rather go through it at the start of the season so there is plenty of time for players to return in time for pivotal games further down the line.

Every club will go through periods where they have lots of injuries and have to rely on squad players and youngsters. That is part and parcel of the attritional nature of the Premiership.

A couple of years ago Wasps were eighth at Christmas before going on a long unbeaten run to finish in the top four at the end of the season and they have a better squad now, so there’ll be no signs of panic at the Ricoh Arena.

It is going to be a hell of a game against Bath and there are top quality match-ups all over the pitch. Sam Underhill and Taulupe Faletau against James Haskell and Nathan Hughes in the back row will really set the tone and then there’s Jonathan Joseph against Elliot Daly in a battle of two of England’s outside centre options.

Both teams have come off the back of two disappointing defeats after starting the season well, so this is a massive game for both when it comes to their top four aspirations and trying to stop the yo-yo effect of bouncing in and out of the play-off places as the season wears on.

Bath have picked a strong side and come to the Midlands fully loaded but Wasps will definitely be favourites. They may have seen their 20-game home winning streak ended by Quins but I don’t expect lightning to strike twice this weekend.

It will be a special day for the club as it marks the 150^th anniversary of its formation at the now defunct Eton and Middlesex Tavern in North London with a host of activities, including the handing over of a time capsule to the World Rugby Hall of Fame to be opened in another 150 years.

I expect them to mark the occasion with a victory but, win or lose, the club could not be in better shape as it looks to embarks on the next 150 years of its journey and that is reason enough to celebrate after the turbulent times of recent years.

There was a massive uproar when the decision was made to move to Coventry and there’s no getting away from that but if they hadn’t made the move, Wasps might not have made it to their 150^th anniversary. The club was that close to going bust.

Big clubs like Richmond, London Scottish and Coventry have all fallen by the wayside because of financial difficulties and there’s no reason Wasps couldn’t have gone the same way, but they have Derek Richardson to thank for the turnaround in the past few years.

Wasps are in a great position now, not only as a rugby club but as a viable business. Rugby income makes up less than 30 percent of the club’s total revenues, so it is a brilliant business model that other sides will look at with envy.

The club has been through some choppy waters over the past four or five years but they’ve sailed through them and there’s definitely a bright future ahead, regardless of how many injuries they have.